The Essential Secrets of Songwritinghttps://www.secretsofsongwriting.com
Daily Articles by Gary EwerMon, 19 Nov 2018 13:41:07 +0000en-CAhourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.8101289861Helping an Audience Understand Your Weird Chord Progressionshttps://www.secretsofsongwriting.com/2018/11/19/helping-an-audience-understand-your-weird-chord-progressions/
https://www.secretsofsongwriting.com/2018/11/19/helping-an-audience-understand-your-weird-chord-progressions/#respondMon, 19 Nov 2018 13:41:07 +0000https://www.secretsofsongwriting.com/?p=13683Here’s a quick tip for you if you like complex chord progressions: keep the weirdness toward the middle of your progression, and make the beginning and ending of it tonally strong.

Here’s what that means: Most songs in the pop genres are going to be in one key or another, and so if you want that key to be at least somewhat clear to your audience, you’re going to have to end it by giving them something predictable and strong.

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So no matter how complex your progression is, you’ll probably want to end it on a tonic chord (I), approached by something predictable (V-I, or IV -I, or ii-I, or even bVII-I, for example).

The same goes for the beginning. Keep the start of your progression relatively strong and unsurprising. So I-IV, I-V, I-ii… these are all great ways to start.

So far, you have this:

Once you’ve set up a tonally strong beginning, you’ve gained the trust of your audience that you know what you’re doing, and also makes them more willing to hear something a bit more challenging to their ears.

So that middle section might do any of several things (sample keys and fragments of progressions shown in brackets):

It might simple wander around, being tonally ambiguous, pulling back into the original key as the melody comes to an end (Beginning: C major // Middle: Gb/Ab – F/G – Bb/C – A/B, etc… End: C/D F/G Cmaj7)

The point is, there’s a lot of strength that comes from keeping chord weirdness to the middle part of a song section, and moving back into something much more predictable and tonally strong by the end.

So if you find that your own songs sound a bit too aimless for your liking, where you find that your listeners are getting lost in your creative approach to chords, the problem may be that you haven’t given them enough to understand clearly before moving into something more ambiguous.

And keep in mind that if you want to strengthen a tonally ambiguous moment in your chords, try modifying what you’ve come up with in such a way that adjacent chords have roots that are a 4th or 5th away from each other. Even just one change can help.

An example:

C Db Bb A Ab G C.

It’s creative, and it can be made to work, especially in slower tempos. But if you’re finding it a bit too random for your audience, try changing that Ab chord to a Dm. Dm is good for several reasons: it’s in the key of C major, it’s a 4th up from A before it and a 4th below the G that comes after. So it really works well to strengthen the end of that progression.

One final thought: Chord progressions are hard to evaluate out of context. Some progressions can be aimless almost from beginning to end and still come across as fine and workable. So determining if or how to fix a progression really depends on your ears, and your assessment of how it’s working.

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]]>https://www.secretsofsongwriting.com/2018/11/19/helping-an-audience-understand-your-weird-chord-progressions/feed/013683Composing Opposites as a Songwriting Exercisehttps://www.secretsofsongwriting.com/2018/11/16/composing-opposites-as-a-songwriting-exercise/
https://www.secretsofsongwriting.com/2018/11/16/composing-opposites-as-a-songwriting-exercise/#respondFri, 16 Nov 2018 14:25:48 +0000https://www.secretsofsongwriting.com/?p=13679On those days when you’re between songs and don’t know what to write about, you can avoid frustration — and ultimately writer’s block — if you change your focus and work on some songwriting exercises.

The end result of a songwriting exercise is usually a fragment — a fragment that might or might not ever work its way into one of your songs. The value in creating these fragments is the training your musical mind, training that will help you create future songs with more ease.

“Chord Progression Formulas” shows you a system for creating your own progressions in seconds using some basic formulas, in both major or minor keys. It’s available at the Online Store.

As you likely know, contrast is a vital part of songwriting/musical success. Loud/soft, high/low, full/transparent… there are many ways that songs present opposite characteristics in close proximity, and we love hearing those contrasts.

So we love the loud raucous intro of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” which then suddenly gives way to a very transparent, quieter verse, and back to a loud, energetic chorus.

We love the low verse melody of Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin'” which then jumps an octave higher for the chorus.

We love when opposites take their time as well. We love the long, slow build of “Shallow” (Lady Gaga, Andrew Wyatt, Anthony Rossomando, Mark Ronson), and love how the constant build grabs our emotions and pulls them along with it.

Sometimes opposites are a result of production-level decisions, but you can also create opposites as a songwriting exercise. Here are a few ideas for working on creating musical fragments by considering opposites:

Lyrics

The most obvious opposite we present in typical song lyrics is the contrast of narrative-style with emotional. So try this: Think up a song topic (don’t obsess over this… anything will do: a break-up, love for your child, world peace… that sort of thing). And now write two quick lyrics, a verse-type lyric that tells a part of a story, and then contrast it with a more emotional, reaction-style lyric that you might find in a chorus.

Example:

Verse (narrative style):

You told me not to wait around any more,It’s time to move on, time to walk out the door… [etc.]

Chorus (emotional, reaction style):

How do I keep from going insane?Don’t toss me aside, there’s nothing to gain… [etc.]

Melody

Of the many ways you can create opposites in melody-writing, try this one:

Now create two melodies, 1) one that sits relatively low in pitch and avoids the tonic note; and 2) one that sits relatively high and features the tonic note as an important beginning and/or ending.

The low one would work as a verse melody and the high one as a chorus. There are other ways to practice your melody-writing skills; for example, try starting on a high note and work your way downward. Now go through the progression again, starting on a low note and work your way upward.

Chord Progressions

The most obvious opposite with regard to chords is to contrast major with minor. In the progression above, you’ll notice that the third phrase switches focus to minor (Am F G Am), and it creates a pleasant sense of contrast that keeps the entire fragment from becoming a boring repetition.

Opposites have a way of grabbing a listener’s attention in very positive ways. Opposites can create musical momentum that makes us extremely curious and want to keep listening.

For each of the ideas above, don’t worry about writing a full song, but be aware that some of your ideas will be enticing enough to include in a future song you’ll be working on, so be sure to record/document everything you do, and keep those ideas!

]]>https://www.secretsofsongwriting.com/2018/11/16/composing-opposites-as-a-songwriting-exercise/feed/013679Setting Targets Will Make Songwriting More Fulfilling, More Excitinghttps://www.secretsofsongwriting.com/2018/11/15/setting-targets-will-make-songwriting-more-fulfilling-more-exciting/
https://www.secretsofsongwriting.com/2018/11/15/setting-targets-will-make-songwriting-more-fulfilling-more-exciting/#commentsThu, 15 Nov 2018 13:53:26 +0000https://www.secretsofsongwriting.com/?p=13674If you’re looking to become a better songwriter and wondering why that’s not happening for you yet, you only need to look at the kinds of goals to targets you set for yourself. Songwriters who struggle are usually guilty of one of the following:

The goals they set are unrealistic. (“I want to be writing songs for pop music’s biggest acts within the next year.”)

The goals they set are too vague. (“I want to be a better songwriter.”)

Setting targets for yourself is a vital part of becoming a happier, more successful songwriter. Without targets to aim for, you’ve got no way of knowing what you’re supposed to be achieving. But they need to be realistic, and they need to be specific.

Want to get better at writing lyrics? “Use Your Words! Developing a Lyrics-First Songwriting Process” shows you three methods for starting your songs by working out the lyrics first. Right now, it’s FREE with your purchase of the 10-eBook Bundle.

]]>https://www.secretsofsongwriting.com/2018/11/15/setting-targets-will-make-songwriting-more-fulfilling-more-exciting/feed/113674Improving Your Ability to Imagine Melodieshttps://www.secretsofsongwriting.com/2018/11/14/improving-your-ability-to-imagine-melodies/
https://www.secretsofsongwriting.com/2018/11/14/improving-your-ability-to-imagine-melodies/#commentsWed, 14 Nov 2018 13:55:52 +0000https://www.secretsofsongwriting.com/?p=13667If the songs you write come about as a result of improvising — either by yourself or with other songwriters/players — you probably find that the various components of a song come together in layers. A bit of this, a bit of that, and it all eventually glues together.

If you’re writing songs by yourself, you may find that it’s the chords that happen first, to which you add a bit of a rhythmic groove, and then melody happens.

“Chord Progression Formulas” can give you lots of progressions to try in mere moments by using some standard easy-to-use formulas. If you like the chords-first songwriting process, you need this eBook. Get it separately, or as part of “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting 10-eBook Bundle”

Most of the great composers wrote their music by imagining melodies as a first step, and then working out the chords that might accompany them. In fact, imagining melodies and coming up with chords happened almost simultaneously for the Beethovens and Mozarts of the classical music world.

That’s because their minds were already organizing melodies that have a strong sense of harmonic direction; no one was composing melodies made up of notes that were just moving around randomly. So the melodies, if they were good ones, implied the chords that might go with them.

The Melody-First Process

Coming up with a melody first, with nothing else in your mind at the time, might seem scary to you, but I think that if you give it a try you’ll enjoy what happens. And what happens is usually this:

You hum a few notes, and you find that you create catchy patterns consisting of short, repeating ideas.

Those ideas, if you just start humming, seem to centre themselves on certain chords, often the I, IV or V chords (in either major or minor).

You find that you can imagine when chords might actually change.

All of this is to say that you already have the basic ability to imagine melodies, because you can also imagine chords and the general tempo and feel of music.

So why do so many songwriters like the chords-first process over the many melody-first methods? What is it about coming up with chords that makes songwriting seem easier than coming up with a melody? Mainly, it’s that you can create pretty good songs with very few chords. Even two chords can be enough to get most of a song worked out, like American’s “A Horse With No Name” (Em D6/add9)

And chords have a way of creating a mood almost immediately, while a melody (and this is usually a strength of the melody-first methods) can be manipulated into different moods depending on the chords and accompaniment specifics.

So if you’re going to write songs using the chords first method, you’ve probably got the mood of your music established pretty early on in the process. But what do you do to create melodies? How can you improve your ability to imagine melodies once you’ve got the chords?

Here’s a short list of ideas that will hopefully help you out:

Create your chords, record them, and let them sit in your mind for several days. Listen to them over and over on a loop, and start improvising melodies vocally. It’s a great activity as you walk to work or school, or sit in your car at rush hour. And because you’re doing this over several days, you will likely find that your musical mind goes looking for new ideas, and that’s a good thing.

Change how you play your chords. Alter the tempo, the time signature, the notes you choose to be the tops of the chords. The more you change the way you play the chords, the more likely it is that you’ll come up with something unique as a melody.

Choose a good progression, but don’t stop experimenting. Some things to try: change up the order of the chords. For example, if you’ve chosen Am G Em Am as your basic progression, try Am Em G Am, and even try a different starting chord: Em G Em Am. Substitute chords. Nothing’s cast in stone.

Explore vocal range. Play your chosen progression on a loop, and start by improvising melodies that are generally low in pitch. These ones will work well for verses. Then try melodies that are mainly high in pitch, comprised of short, catchy patterns that might work as a chorus hook.

By spending this kind of time on working out your melodies, you avoid the problem of melody boredom; chords-first has the inherent danger of making us ignore melody.

The main benefit of focusing as much as possible on melody early in your songwriting process is that you’re focusing on the bit that everyone will hum. You’ll notice any little problems with your melody right away, and it helps you as you start layering other components underneath it.

]]>https://www.secretsofsongwriting.com/2018/11/14/improving-your-ability-to-imagine-melodies/feed/113667The Confidence to be Honest as a Songwriterhttps://www.secretsofsongwriting.com/2018/11/12/the-confidence-to-be-honest-as-a-songwriter/
https://www.secretsofsongwriting.com/2018/11/12/the-confidence-to-be-honest-as-a-songwriter/#respondMon, 12 Nov 2018 15:31:35 +0000https://www.secretsofsongwriting.com/?p=13665You’ve got little to no hope of achieving your goals in songwriting, or any of the creative arts, if you don’t have the confidence to be honest about your songs.

Confidence refers to your ability to stand behind and believe in your songs even though others might dislike them.

Honesty refers to your ability to hear your songs exactly the way others will hear them.

If you falter and dismiss your own songs because someone else doesn’t like them, you don’t have the confidence needed to move upward in the music business.

If you find that everything you write sounds wonderful to the extent that you miss crucial opportunities to improve your skills, you don’t have the honesty or objectivity needed to advance from the amateur world to the professional world.

Tricky Tightrope

It’s a tricky tightrope upon which the best songwriters find themselves balancing. Too confident? You’re probably missing opportunities to hone and polish your music. On the other end of the spectrum, you might find your confidence collapsing simply because someone else dislikes your music.

If you are a songwriter with both of those characteristics in proper balance, the following statements likely pertain to you:

You feel pride in every song you complete — but you don’t let pride cloud your musical or artistic judgment.

You feel disappointed if someone expresses dislike for a song you’ve written — but you don’t use that opinion as the sole reason for changing the song.

You feel able to listen to your songs objectively and honestly — and you work to hear them the way others hear them.

Confidence in your songs should never prevent you from seeking out advice from good songwriters and good producers that you respect and admire. Listen to that advice; you’ll find that more often than not, their advice is sound.

Professional producers with experience in your genre will almost always give you advice that will help you tap into your target audience.

Professional songwriters will be able to help you by teaching you the lessons they learned the hard way.

The Top of the Creative Tree

To be innovative and unique in the songwriting world means doing something that no one else is doing. That requires confidence, because you’ll be at the very top of the creative tree, and it’s a lonely spot.

For every song you write, you need to ask yourself, “If someone else had written this song, would I like it?”

You might find that it takes a lot of objective honesty to be able to answer that question truthfully.

]]>https://www.secretsofsongwriting.com/2018/11/12/the-confidence-to-be-honest-as-a-songwriter/feed/013665Balancing the Unique With the Heartfelthttps://www.secretsofsongwriting.com/2018/11/09/balancing-the-unique-with-the-heartfelt/
https://www.secretsofsongwriting.com/2018/11/09/balancing-the-unique-with-the-heartfelt/#respondFri, 09 Nov 2018 19:14:29 +0000https://www.secretsofsongwriting.com/?p=13662Every songwriter I know wants to write something unique, and you don’t even need to wonder why. Simply put, uniqueness means it hasn’t been done before, and there’s no better way to set yourself apart from other songwriters than to write something that hasn’t been done quite that way before.

While that may be true, consider this: the good old-fashioned love song still sells. Love songs still grab attention, and it’s hard to find a unique angle available when it comes to love songs. Everything you can write about when it comes to love has been written about.

And yet… love songs still sell. When it comes to love songs, the search for uniqueness isn’t going to yield much.

So it’s not uniqueness that’s making a love song successful. But what is it? It’s this: if you write something that can be felt in the heart of the listener, you’ve done something more powerful than uniqueness will ever do for you. If you write a song that taps into the experience (real or imagined) of the audience, that’s what sells.

So when you’ve written a song about some angle of love, the fact that your song is your own is all the uniqueness you probably need. To make it successful, you need the following:

A lyric that speaks to a universal emotion. “I’ve never loved anyone like I’ve love you” is practically always going to work to at least some degree, because every single listener can relate to the enthusiasm of that emotion.

A lyric that uses simple, conversational expressions of love. In Chicago’s “Your Are My Love and My Life”, the bridge section ends with the line, “Loving you girl is so damn easy!” That line raises the emotional content of the bridge to its highest point, and expresses what everyone has felt at some point in their life.

An up-and-down pattern to the emotion of the song. By using verses to describe situations and choruses to express emotion, listeners go on a rather pleasant “roller coaster” ride of emotions, and they love it that way. Just listen to Lorde’s “Writer in the Dark” (lyrics here) and you’ll hear how she pulls you around emotionally with powerful lyric partnered carefully with an unbelievably expressive melody and clever production.

In that Lorde song, it’s the musical arrangement that stands out as the unique element. The intelligent approach to the vocal sound and style, along with the instrumentation, set this song apart and give it the uniqueness it needs.

But underneath it all, the lyrics speak to something far more common: “Did my best to exist just for you…”; “I’ll find a way to be with out you, babe…”; “I still feel you, now and then…” These are all emotions that are simple and germane to the human experience. That’s what grabs our emotional attention.

And when all’s said and done, the simplicity of emotion — writing something truly heartfelt — will stand out and matter more than a song’s uniqueness.

Get “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” eBooks. They’ll help you polish your technique and make you the best songwriter you can be. Comes with a Study Guide, tons of chord progressions, and information covering every aspect of how to write good music.

]]>https://www.secretsofsongwriting.com/2018/11/09/balancing-the-unique-with-the-heartfelt/feed/013662Taking the Time Component Out of Your Songhttps://www.secretsofsongwriting.com/2018/11/08/taking-the-time-component-out-of-your-song/
https://www.secretsofsongwriting.com/2018/11/08/taking-the-time-component-out-of-your-song/#respondThu, 08 Nov 2018 15:14:34 +0000https://www.secretsofsongwriting.com/?p=13656Time is the one thing all music has in common. Whether we’re talking about a symphony, a pop song, a jazz ballad — whether it’s hip hop, ska, r&b — all music takes time. A start, a middle, and an ending.

When we’re writing a song, we’re (either consciously or subconsciously) always considering some aspect of a time element. It’s not just about that chorus hook: it’s about how long it took to get to it. It’s about how long the song is. It’s about how melodies, chords and lyrics transform over time.

“How to Harmonize a Melody” shows you, step by step, how to choose the chords that will work with your melody, how to substitute chords, and how to make more complex progressions work for you. Buy it separately, or as part of “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 10-eBook Bundle.

How a song progresses and changes over the 4 minutes or so of its life is crucial to its success. But when trying to analyze problems with your songs, it can sometimes serve you well to take the time component out and look at the various bits as entities that exist outside of time. Here’s how you might do that with song melodies.

A good song to use to describe this notion of ignoring the time aspect of music would be “On My Mind” — Ellie Goulding’s 2016 hit written by Goulding, Max Martin, Savan Kotecha, and Ilya Salmanzadeh.

In this song, we get four melodies: verse, pre-chorus, chorus and bridge. As you write this kind of song, you want to be sure that there’s a nice build as the song progresses — a nice ebb and flow. But ebb and flow is a time-related quality; forget that for the moment, and just look at the contour of your various melodies (represented by the orange lines below):

Pulling these melodies out of time and just looking at them as musical constructs makes it a lot easier to see their basic architecture. And you can see one thing right away: the obvious similarity between the verse and chorus melodies.

That kind of similarity would only be a problem if it existed in a song in verse-chorus design (i.e., no pre-chorus or bridge). Contrast is a vital part of musical success, so a verse and a chorus that both dwell on a repeated pitch with an upward turn at the end would spell disaster for most songs.

But pulling the melodies out of time and looking at them as separate entities allows you to more easily compare them. You’ll see right away that this kind of song is a prime candidate for adding a pre-chorus that starts with an upward leap, a melody that takes on a completely different shape.

And it’s also a prime candidate for a bridge section that uses a melody with much more contour.

As you can see, you don’t need to be able to read music to make these kind of contour drawings of your song melodies. This is all you need to do: create line drawings of the various melodies you use, and then examine them for similarities and contrast. And it works for any genre of music.

Adjacent sections that use similar melodic shape can bore an audience, so sketching out melodies in this way can alert you to needing to add miscellaneous sections that inject a bit of contrast.

]]>https://www.secretsofsongwriting.com/2018/11/08/taking-the-time-component-out-of-your-song/feed/0136563 Simple Things To Make a Chord Progression More Interestinghttps://www.secretsofsongwriting.com/2018/11/06/3-simple-things-to-make-a-chord-progression-more-interesting/
https://www.secretsofsongwriting.com/2018/11/06/3-simple-things-to-make-a-chord-progression-more-interesting/#commentsTue, 06 Nov 2018 13:57:32 +0000https://www.secretsofsongwriting.com/?p=13651If you don’t like a progression you’ve just come up with, the obvious solution, of course, is to toss it and go looking for another one.

But there’s actually another option: try one of the following three chord progression treatments. For each of these ideas, you keep the basic progression the same, but you make a slight modification.

Use pedal point. Pedal point is simply keeping the same bass note as the chords change above it. So for example, let’s say you have the progression C F G7 C. Not overly inspiring, but now play it again with the bass note C sounding underneath all of those chords. There’s a kind of “freshness” in a progression that uses pedal point, and it may be all you need to make that simple progression sound more interesting. (Experiment with other pedal notes… Try keeping the 6th note (A) in the bass. Each choice lends a different character to the progression.)

Use implied chords. An implied chord is one in which the full 3 or 4-note version of the chord isn’t present. This can work especially well in a song verse. The most common way to do this is to accompany the melody simply with a bass line. The combination of the melody note and the bass note will give one or two notes from the complete chord. The benefit of using implied chords in this way is that it thins the texture of the music, setting things up nicely for a chorus that uses the fuller sound of the complete chord.

Use chord inversions. To invert a chord means that you’re placing a note other than the chord root at the bottom. For example, you might use the 3rd of the F chord (the note A) as that chord’s bass note. Using inversions results in a different bass line, so it’s something you’ll want to experiment with a bit. Even just one inversion in a progression can change the character of an entire progression, so don’t feel you have to use many.

One other quick idea: try changing a major key progression to a minor one. So C F G7 C would become Cm Fm G7 Cm or Cm Fm Gm7 Cm.

]]>https://www.secretsofsongwriting.com/2018/11/06/3-simple-things-to-make-a-chord-progression-more-interesting/feed/113651Opting for a Refrain Instead of a Chorushttps://www.secretsofsongwriting.com/2018/11/05/opting-for-a-refrain-instead-of-a-chorus/
https://www.secretsofsongwriting.com/2018/11/05/opting-for-a-refrain-instead-of-a-chorus/#respondMon, 05 Nov 2018 12:26:29 +0000https://www.secretsofsongwriting.com/?p=13648In common usage within the pop genres, a refrain is a closing line at the end of a verse, usually used in place of a chorus. A classic example is Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are a-Changin'”.

“Chord Progression Formulas” shows you how to create dozens of great progressions practically instantly by using some powerful formulas. Get it separately, or as part of “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting 10-eBook Bundle”

That song’s a good example because it demonstrates some of the important characteristics and qualities of typical refrains:

The melody, chords and lyrics are the same for each refrain. The verses that are attached to the front end, of course, will usually be different, but the refrain is normally the same.

A refrain usually means that the song won’t use a chorus.

A refrain’s melody often starts higher and moves lower, which means that the song’s high point is near the end of the verse. (Sometimes the high point might happen at the start of the refrain, like you hear in “Bridge Over Troubled Water.”

A song with a refrain will often use a bridge to offer something to contrast with a constantly repeating verse melody and chords.

A song’s verse needs to lead smoothly into the refrain, so that means that the chords that happen at the end of the verse need to sound incomplete, as if it needs to refrain to make the verse-refrain unit sound complete.

And that’s actually an important point to consider — the fact that a verse and refrain is a unit. You might be able to play a refrain on its own, but it will sound very short. Moreover, the lyric of a refrain usually needs the verse to help it make sense. Simply singing, “Oh, the times, they are a-changin'” may not offer much that an audience can fully appreciate. But put it at the end of a verse of other thoughts and observations, and suddenly that line makes a lot more sense.

The High Point

One of the more important qualities of a refrain is that it allows the energy that comes along with a verse’s high point to release itself and die away. The melodic range of “The Times They Are a-Changin'” is relatively restricted: mainly a perfect fifth.

Toward the end of that verse, on the words “Then you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone“, we hear the verse’s highest note repeat over and over, building energy and excitement. The refrain then moves the melody downward, and that offers the release of energy that most refrains create.

That probably winds up being the most important feature of a refrain — not the fact that it’s short, or usually contains the song’s title (though those points are true). It’s more that a verse-refrain structure typically has the verse ending high, with the refrain bringing everything lower:

There is a danger in opting for the verse-refrain design for a song, which is that as listeners we pick up a very noticeable sameness, one song to the next. You can do ten songs in verse-chorus format, but two or three verse-refrain songs start to sound overly similar, as if you’re copying your own work.

But any good songwriter should already be thinking carefully about changing key, tempo, feel, instrumentation, lyrical content, etc from one song to the next one. Formal design is simply one more aspect of writing you should be cautious about. A good verse-refrain song means: it’s time to move on to another design.

]]>https://www.secretsofsongwriting.com/2018/11/05/opting-for-a-refrain-instead-of-a-chorus/feed/013648Keep Looking: Second Ideas are Often Better Than First Oneshttps://www.secretsofsongwriting.com/2018/11/02/keep-looking-second-ideas-are-often-better-than-first-ones/
https://www.secretsofsongwriting.com/2018/11/02/keep-looking-second-ideas-are-often-better-than-first-ones/#respondFri, 02 Nov 2018 17:03:53 +0000https://www.secretsofsongwriting.com/?p=13645If you’ve had that happy circumstance where, while trying to write a song, you get some amazing ideas that appear all at once, and you manage to write that new song in one siting, within a half hour or so, I think that’s wonderful. It’s also rare.

While you may not find spontaneous writing yields complete songs within minutes, I think you’ve probably had it happen where a sizeable chunk of lyric, or a gorgeous melody/chord combination has happened, even if it’s not an entire song in one sitting. That’s also wonderful, and more common than writing a complete song on the same day.

Every time you write quickly, it’s exciting. It almost feels magical when fresh musical ideas flow easily. But there is a danger as well: when ideas happen quickly, we can get fooled into thinking that we’ve just created the best thing ever. And once you think you’ve written the best thing ever, you don’t usually keep looking.

Often that bit that will so easily come together will be a chorus hook. You strum some chords, and you get an immediate idea for a lyric, and it pops into your mind with the melody there! What usually takes you a full session of work has just occurred to you in 30 seconds!

When that happens, be sure you’re recording what you’re writing, because it might actually be the best fragment for that moment within your song.

But also consider this: The second thing you come up with might actually be better.

In other words, take that amazing fragment, and start experimenting:

Try it in a new key, up or down, and notice what it does to the feel of the music, to the inherent meaning of the words, and to the general mood of that part of the song.

Try it faster or slower, and see if some new feel comes forward.

Switch the mode. If you’ve worked out something in a minor key, see what it sounds like in relative major (i.e., switch from A minor to C major), or in parallel major (i.e., switch from A minor to A major).

Switch the time signature. Most musical ideas come to us in 4/4 time, so see if 3/4 sounds even better. You can also try something more complex, like 7/6, 5/4, or something else. If you need a bit more info on this, please read my post from this past summer, “Breaking Free from 4/4 Time in Your Songwriting.”

In other words, keep looking. Don’t automatically assume that ideas that come quickly are exempt from improvement. More often than not, you’ll find that second ideas are often better than first ones.